US govt rings in 2013 with odd new laws

The New Year has put new laws on the books across the United States, ranging from the innovative to the odd, it has been claimed.

California legislators alone passed more than 800 bills last year, most of which took effect after midnight Tuesday, the New York Daily news reported.

California has also made self-driving cars legal on public streets, although a human must still be in the passenger seat.

While New Yorkers can still buy plastic bottles, businesses in Concord, Mass., are now banned from selling them.

In Kansas, residents of Wellington are prohibited from owning more than four felines in a home - a law meant to clamp down on the growing cat population.

Feral pigs, meanwhile, are the problem in Kentucky, where it's now illegal to release them back into the wild.

While more cities have moved to ban plastic bags, lawmakers in Concord, Mass., went the extra step and are giving plastic bottles the boot.

The California law has made it illegal to use a dog to hunt a bobcat or a bear in the Golden State. While it's easy to imagine a grizzly tearing up a household pet, the laws are intended to protect the wild animals, not the domesticated ones.

The bill's sponsor, Democratic State Sen. Ted Lieu, said that packs of dogs can occasionally tear apart bobcats after catching them. Of the 32 states that allow bear hunting, 17 have banned the use of dogs, according to the Humane Society of the United States.

Kentucky's neighbour to the northwest that has some of the strangest laws arriving on January 1. Illinois lacked a law explicitly criminalizing sex with a corpse, so previous prosecutions had relied on a charge of "criminal damage to property." (ANI)